“INTELLECTUAL LIGHTENING”: A tribute to John Harris through a collection of memories, imaginary books, fictional reviews, and an interview. John Harris’ impressive and diverse academic career is illustrated and remembered by his colleagues who each contribute with a special memory, story or fake book review, in order to thank John and to cherish the memories. A good philosopher, a kind person, a teacher, different aspects of his work are discussed.

Putting a specific value on human life is important in many contexts and forms part of the basis for many political, administrative, commercial, and personal decisions. Sometimes, the value is set explicitly, sometimes even in monetary terms, but much more often, it is set implicitly through a decision that allows us to calculate the valuation of a life implicit in a certain rule or a certain resource allocation. We also value lives in what looks like a completely different way when we evaluate whether a particular life is being or has been lived well. Both of these ways of valuing are done from an outside or third-person perspective, but there is also a third way of valuing a life which is from the first-person perspective, and which essentially asks how much my life is worth to me. Is there any connection between these different ways of valuing life, and if so what is the connection between them? This paper provides an account of John Harris’ analysis of the value of life and discusses whether it can bridge the gap between first-person and third-person evaluations of the value of life, and whether it can do so in a way that still allows for resource allocation decisions to be made in health care and other sectors.

There are many authors who consider the so-called “moral nose” a valid epistemological tool in the field of morality. The expression was used by George Orwell, following in Friedrich Nietzsche’s footsteps and was very clearly described by Leo Tolstoy. It has also been employed by authors such as Elisabeth Anscombe, Bernard Williams, Noam Chomsky, Stuart Hampshire, Mary Warnock, and Leon Kass. This article examines John Harris’ detailed criticism of what he ironically calls the “olfactory school of moral philosophy.” Harris’ criticism is contrasted with Jonathan Glover’s defense of the moral nose. Glover draws some useful distinctions between the various meanings that the notion of moral nose can assume. Finally, the notion of moral nose is compared with classic notions such as Aristotelian phronesis, Heideggerian aletheia, and the concept of “sentiment” proposed by the philosopher Thomas Reid. The conclusion reached is that morality cannot be based only on reason, or—as David Hume would have it—only on feelings.

In our book Unfit for the Future and a number of papers, we have argued that there is a dangerous mismatch between, on the one hand, the tremendous power of scientific technology, which has created societies with millions of citizens, and, on the other hand, our moral capacities, which have been shaped by evolution for life in small, close-knit societies with primitive technology. To overcome this mismatch before it results in the downfall of human civilization, human beings stand in acute need of moral enhancement, not only by traditional means but also by biomedical means, should this turn out to be possible. After summarizing this argument, we respond to two critics, Michael Hauskeller and Robert Sparrow.